It has been a volatile week; the world has been witness of a shocking political situation threatening a powerful democracy. the news, alongside ongoing pandemic updates while last minute efforts of current US leadership to approve mining and drilling operations in protected natural regions that will be disastrous for our future. It is important to raise our voices to counter exploitative behavior and violence.
But it was another article in the New York Times that caught my eye this week and left me unsettled and speechless; the murder of a female farmer who raised goats and made cheese in the Mocheni valley, a small valley in the Trento region in Italy. She was killed by a farmhand over a wage dispute.
When I first started this blog a number of years ago, I helped out on an (Italian) family farm in the Mocheni Valley. It is there that I first learned to milk goats by hand and turn it into delicious cheese and yoghurt. Mocheni goats are a special breed, the pride of the valley, and I attended the Mocheni goat festival where goat keepers compete for most beautiful goats. The valley is special, one side is Italian, the other German speaking, and a special Mocheni dialect.
Agitu Idea Gudeta fled Ethiopia and build her business in her adopted homeland Italy, bringing with her a passion for animal husbandry. In 2010 she started out to raise a herd of Mocheni goats, close to the place where I first learned to milk goats and was encouraged by the determination of female farmers. As I said the news left me speechless.
To speak up, but also to carefully listen to what is going on around us. Fight for what you believe in, but also be aware of our vulnerability, especially as women.
Sense-ible Bag Lady 